The real issue that I have is the erasure people are trying to do with my very valid feelings in regard to how plus-size and fat people are treated in fashion. The way that people just kind of overlook us and pretend that, you know, we don't have style, that we aren't trendy or fashionable. It's dehumanizing.
I think the media in general hasn't been very kind to fat women or fat people. We see so many insensitive portrayals of plus-sized people. That kind of stuff really affected me - not even necessarily the portrayal of fat people, but the absence of fat people.
I'm a novelist, and idle speculation is what novelists do. How odd to spend one's life trying to pretend that non-existent people are real: though no odder, I suppose, than what government bureaucrats do, which is trying to pretend that real people are non-existent.
At the end of the day, it just means 'curvy.' That's why I think the word 'plus-size' in the industry is very different from people's mind view of what 'plus-size' really should mean.
I don't understand why it's not okay to be plus-size. I don't know why people hate that phrase. Many models have built their careers as plus-size women and then suddenly don't want to be called that anymore. But you're still cashing checks from plus-size designers.
People think that, somehow, size makes you uncoordinated or incompetent. There is a lot of size discrimination out there, and I see the difference in the way people treated me when I was 360 pounds versus how they treat me when I'm 290 - from the industry to day-to-day people on the street.
There's not a lot of clothes out there for girls that are bigger, there's not a lot of trendy things out there, and I want to change the way people look at the plus size industry.
I laugh when I end up on the worst-dressed lists. I'm not trying to be fashionable. I know I'm kind of a cartoon character. Do people honestly think I'm wearing a kafkan in order to be fashionable?
It is no secret, of course, that people have strong feelings about fat - feelings that seem only to have been inflamed by the sense, in western countries, that there is an obesity crisis afoot. Concerns about health have mutated into a kind of panic attending any mention of fat people at all.
People say, ‘How is she a plus-size model?’ and I’m like, ‘Exactly, this is the point, how am I a plus-size model?
There's a certain kind of wrestling fan that will only like a certain style. They think that's the right way, and that's okay, but I'm not trying to impress those people. Those people are already kind of set in their ways. I'm trying to open the world to a different style, what pro-wrestling has the potential to be.
I wear things that aren't in fashion. I wear colors that aren't in fashion. And as a result of that, I kind of bring it back. I feel like nothing really ever goes out of style. It's just what the media and what people tell people to wear. I think having your own sense of fashion is important.
It's going to take baby steps to see a complete turnaround. But there's been such a positive outcome from seeing it at Fashion Week. Plus-size fashion shows are being more welcomed into Fashion Week, and having more plus-size women in major magazines.
The thing about literature is that, yes, there are kind of tides of fashion, you know; people come in and out of fashion; writers who are very celebrated fall into, you know, people you know stop reading them, and then it comes back again.
I think the problem is that fashion has become too fashionable. For years, fashion wasn't fashionable. Today fashion is so fashionable that it's almost embarrassing to say you're part of fashion. All the parodies of it. All the dreadful magazines. That has destroyed it as well, because everybody thinks fashion is attainable.
What you wear can largely govern your feelings and your emotions, and how you look influences the way people regard you. So fashion plays an important role on both the practical level and the aesthetic level.
People like to say you're either born with style or you're not, and that's complete hooey. You've gotta develop your own and find your own.If you just put on whatever they're trying to sell you, you will always be out of fashion. Otherwise, they can't keep selling you. So, you will always be out of fashion. Get used to it. That's the game. Whatever they say is fashionable, chuck it.